Album Review: 8:18 by The Devil Wears Prada

 

The demise of the once proud Roadrunner Records has been well documented over the last couple of years. What was once the largest label in the metal world has now become another subsidiary of Warner and has in the process lost many of the biggest names involved. Staff members like legendary A&R man Monte Connor have moved on to other labels, musicians like Max Cavalera, who has ended up signed to Roadrunner with FOUR different bands, have taken their business elsewhere. So a band signing to them at this point seems like an odd anomaly. Rising Christian metalcore stars The Devil Wears Prada became that anomaly early last year, and actually, it makes perfect sense. The band's star has been rising for years, and with the one two punch of the Zombie EP and Dead Throne they began to make the transition from ironic song titles and spots on the Warped Tour to opening for Slayer and Slipknot on the Rockstar Mayhem Festival. Some continue to view this evolution as selling out, and little if nothing will shake them from this belief, but to the open minded this move would have to make sense. To many, 8:18 will be seen as the moment The Devil Wears Prada arrived.

For four/fifths of the band, they can bask in the glory of the moment. The Devil Wears Prada got heavier by roughly a factor of ten with their last two releases and 8:18 sees them continuing to evolve that sound into something that could probably be described as brutal. This almost crosses the line from metalcore back into straight hardcore. Guitarists Jeremy DePoyster and Chris Rubey, bassist Andy Trick and drummer Daniel Williams form a near perfect union on this release. Unfortunately, their frontman Mike Hranica isn't in quite as fine shape, and when a member of your band isn't in top shape you don't want it to be the man out in front. Hranica's screaming on this release sounds, to be kind, strained. Forced. It sounds like he's trying too hard. After four releases of perfectly fine, well calibrated screaming, Hranica appears to have wanted to shake things up a bit and in doing so went in the wrong direction. Too often a particularly dark, downtuned passage will be marked by a high pitched scream that seems to push a little bit too hard and Hranica will sound a little bit too close to losing his voice for at least this reviewer's comfort, and it kills the moment unfortunately. It kills a lot of moments. I understand the intentions were to aim for a rawer, more immediate approach, akin to live performance, but if he had sounded like this during a live performance the response should be the same.

It is unfortunate that this record comes as close to being something great as it does, because that makes a major component letting the group down this way all the more tragic. The rise will probably not stop here, but it would've been nice to have a better record to show off on this new plateau.